


Unforgiving

by Deiro



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Delusions, Descent into Madness, Flashbacks, Gen, Guilt, Kray-centric, Mentions of Death & Murder, Poor Life Choices, this is a pre-movie fic from kray's side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:13:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21987961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deiro/pseuds/Deiro
Summary: His worst deed began with two inadvertent yet reprehensible headstones. So Kray figured, what was one more or three or a hundred? Planned, collateral, accidental... it no longer mattered, as long as he'd be able right it all at the very end. As long as the final result at last outweighed the cost.OR.. Kray Foresight and his dastardly unhealthy coping mechanisms.
Relationships: Kray Foresight & Galo Thymos (briefly), Kray Foresight & Promare
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	Unforgiving

◇◆◇

“Why don't you use your science to stop the Earth's magma?”

A youthful voice yelled, resolute and endowed with defiant but optimistic vigor, even in the face of the destructive power of the Absolute Zero Heat Death Canon aimed at them.

Once, Kray may have felt that same youthful vigor, spouted a similar defiance. It eventually dissolved into a trigger pull at his fingers.

_—BANG!_

“You have to reach the core for that. This machine won't withstand the heat.”

He bothered to explain, loud and ever so patient, a virtue constantly rehearsed to shut off the maddening ringing in his ears.

_Brighter. Hotter. More—_

“You just want to migrate no matter what!” Galo dismissed. “But we'll stop the flames of your stupid ambitions!”

Flames. Fire. Blaze. How Galo made light use of the words when their actual manifestations caused so much of the grief and trauma that plagued the Earth.. How his very presence seemed like a constant stretch to Kray’s measured plans, he couldn't fathom. But he convinced himself he was malleable enough to always deal with it.

So he adapted. Fire was something Kray held an unyielding contempt for. It was why he tirelessly devoted his resources to produce the very technology that stopped it. Why he had committed murder to acquire the knowledge. And why a prosthesis replaced the flesh and bones of his left limb.

And yet Galo always excitedly spouted over activities that “set his soul ablaze” so eagerly, on top of strenuously clinging to his life’s story.

Hah.. if only Galo knew of the literal fire that lived within Kray, and how its first spark had entangled them, laying two familiar headstones right under Kray's feet. If only he knew of the whispers that for years on end had urged him to bury Galo the same way.

_SHARE YOUR FLAME—_

Kray’s metal hand gripped the machine's control with unnecessary force.

“You think you fools can stop me?” he grit. “Go to absolute zero freezing hell!!”

He fired the cannon at his prey once more, picturing how he’d finally be able to let Galo join his relatives, except that it would happen within a sea of frost. Rather than give the Promare the satisfaction, Kray had chosen to finish Galo off in ice. The same result when he left Doctor Prometh's lab:

An unforgiving, cold, freezing hell.

But it backfired. Somehow, irrationally and furiously unexpected, the cursed Doctor continued to mock Kray's defiance even after death. The Deus Ex Machina withstood his frontal assault long enough to sneak its fire from within. Soon after, everything exploded into a sea of protruding metal, hurling Kray into the air, ejecting him from his costly mecha.

Screen panels shattered, circuits ripped free, glass broke all around and iron jolted into unshapely forms as he landed amid the wreckage. Years of Kray Foresight's work and plans were undone by his most haunting blunder, Galo Thymos, who dared to aid the repugnant leader of those filthy, abhorrent Mad Burnish terrorists--!!

▷▷▷▷▷▷ ◆ ◁◁◁◁◁◁

Kray held little recollection of his much younger days when the first World Blaze occurred. He only remembered bits and pieces of the many memorials that followed, the relocations, the fundraiser campaigns, the extensive list of the missing, and the continued news coverage of motorized gangs.

He understood the widespread hostility towards the Burnish, and was no different in the shared public sentiment. Which was why..

“When I grow up, I want to be just like you. I want to be a great hero!” Galo's young voice echoed from within a memory of long ago, small gloved hands raised above his head, dazzling awe in his gaze.

..All Kray saw in those eyes were two gravestones with his name attached to them. All he felt was the crushing weight of the impending disillusionment. All he heard were the roars of motorcycles, followed by people’s screams of terror.

He pretended to scratch an itch over his left side and drew a long breath.

_Give us more—_

How disgusting, to possess any sort of similarity to known terrorists. How dismal, for Galo to always figure out ways to find him and pry. He swore Galo’s school didn’t take this route. But despite his discomfort, Kray willed his facial muscles to construct a smile at young Galo, and spoke in a practiced soft tone.

“You don't need to be a hero to be great, Galo. You can just be the very best 'You’.”

Galo’s pristine smile widened impossibly, nodding his head after. Kray averted his eyes to catch a passing crow.

It had been a simple, vacant and impersonal message. Something positive any stranger could say. A calculated distance that Kray measured to keep Galo from probing at his wrong side.

_Burn more hotly, more than this. Share your flame—_

It was beyond wretched to be around Galo. He made it so much easier to self-deprecate, and Kray considered it unproductive and energy-draining. A useless feedback loop because there was no way he was anything like those radicals who let their fire roam free, purposely antagonizing civilians. He also had no inkling in trying to identify others like himself to share his woes with. And most certainly, he never gave in to that stupid intrusive voice.

_Share your flame, it feels good—_

It had been a fluke when his fire first sparked. It was never his intention to cause any harm, and he’d been so desperate to shut it off that he let his own arm be consumed by the fire in an effort to contain it.

That must’ve been why he didn’t get found out; the willingness to throw away a piece of himself. His heart had hammered so loudly, he hadn’t even felt the tight grip of a child in his arms soon after. He never meant to be Galo’s hero, but if that was the story the public endowed him with, if he fought back a fastidious sensation that insisted his missing limb could be reconstructed and he _stopped_ it, then there was a reason.

_Brighter, hotter, madlier—_

He constantly pondered over how he could make up for such a stupendous fiasco. Day in and day out for months on end, he searched through peers, jobs and connections for even a fragment more of knowledge about the mutation, as meticulously discreet as was possible.

And when he was alone in his room with a decidedly broken fire alarm, he grit his teeth, rolled and twisted as he doomed his left arm to remain nonexistent; to be eaten up by the flames. Again, and again, and again, and again.

_Stronger, harder, more than this—_

Not like there was anyone to acknowledge his struggle. The strain he bore was invisible. Civilized. Expected. Like the way he expectedly answered Galo’s passing commentaries in their increasingly coincidental commutes with “hmmms” and “I sees” and “so what happened thens?” to make him think he was paying attention.

(in reality, Kray occupied his thoughts with numbers and astronomical possibilities, like the amount of force the ground under their feet needed to suddenly propel Galo’s body outside the Earth's atmosphere, or what the likelihood of an unsuspecting ice storm razing them was)

_It’s not enough. We can burn more—_

Kray became impeccable at hiding emotions and fabricating expressions he did not feel. He mastered reading others to say the right words. Inch by inch he morphed into being disciplined, pedantic, and forever outwardly composed all the while boiling on the inside.

‘Faux hero,’ he recited over and over, more persistently so whenever Galo would find him.

 _Burn hotter!_ he heard, more importunately so in those moments too.

_BURN THIS TOO—_

His tireless persistence finally led him to a laboratory that contained studies, research, and alarming projections compiled by an elusive scientist: Doctor Deus Prometh. A Burnish researcher that had discovered the source of the mutation. An alien he dubbed, “Promare.”

Finally, Kray had a name for what caused his ongoing nightmares.

Finally, he found the enemy.

_YOU CAN BURN MORE—_

Unfortunately, the knowledge did not include a means to terminate it. And to make his anger worse, Kray saw, horrified and in disbelief, projections of a trans-dimensional rift and its impact on the Earth's core, present and forecasted that, if true, set the Earth in motion for another major catastrophe.

Another World Blaze, resulting in an inhospitable planet. Zero human survival.

Apart from such studies, Doctor Prometh withheld another room in the lab with various instant-freezing inventions in progress that had the potential to do well against fire, if only they were altered in certain ways and released to the public.

_NOT ENOUGH, GIVE US MORE—_

Nevertheless Kray worked diligently to further Dr. Prometh’s research to earn his trust, on the premise that he was just as fascinated with the mutation and sought only to understand. And on days away from the lab, Kray would continue to look through copies of the information like a person possessed, absorbing everything.

The documents were supposed to be confidential, never to leave the premises, but as the forecasted projections of the rising magma from the Earth’s core continued to advance and the voices of the Promare became louder in his ears, Kray increasingly found that the unwise Doctor's rules mattered less and less.

_WE CAN BURN HOTTER STILL. MORE BRIGHT, MORE FIERCE. NOT ENOUGH—_

Chillingly, Kray knew it was only a matter of time before his own body lost control again too.

Before it could happen, his efforts had to evolve into something so grand, so amazing, as to make those two gravestones that followed Galo’s pesky shadow fade like an ugly memory that would never amount to even an anecdote in his life’s story.

Eventually--Kray thought, as he bore holes to the ground under his feet in an endless walking loop--he had to turn the lie around into _something_ that resembled some undeniable fact.

 _“Kray Foresight: Hailed Hero Eradicates Averse Fire Mutation,”_ he imagined a headline once in total delirium.

_NOT ENOUGH—_

On his walks through the streets back home, he reformatted Dr Prometh’s freezing technology in his head, further convinced that they could be used, despite the Doctor’s insistence that they weren’t ready. He heard the sirens of fire trucks passing by and it was all routine: another day, another fire, another casualty.

The research and inventions were revolutionary, but outside that lab, life was exhaustingly the same.

_SHARE YOUR FLAME—_

“Kray, Sir,” Galo’s voice would cut through his deep thoughts, at times when he heard his name through useless chatter. Even as he began his teenage years and grew in height, Galo was still so annoyingly persistent in finding ways to be around him. His eyes hovered bashfully over the left prosthesis Kray had just tensely released, fingers fidgeting with whatever object he had on hand. Could have been a cap. The strap of his backpack. A notebook. In the past, Kray’s own sleeve.

“What is it, Galo?”

_MORE, MORE. WE NEED MORE—_

“Are you... having phantom pains again?” he’d ask, chewing the inside of his cheek.

Galo always feigned guilt whenever he asked this particular question, which was absurd and foolish and Kray wanted to shout and laugh at such ridiculously misguided notions. Because, because..

If only Galo knew.

Perhaps then he wouldn’t look so patronizing.

‘FAUX HERO’

But Kray’s mouth turned into his usual smile and he simply told Galo there was nothing, absolutely _nothing_ to worry about. And when their bus came, or when they’d meet a crossroad, or when the vaguest of someone resembling an acquaintance was in sight, Kray made up an excuse about some forgotten but very important paperwork, or about having to meet someone, or about feeling ill. Anything to finally cut their reunion, and wish him farewells.

‘FOUL, DIRTY’

Kray was always kind to Galo, but that didn’t mean he didn’t wish for the kid to disappear. The less he saw him around, the less his mind would imprudently imagine finishing the job, like turn his body into a pile of ash.

Gosh, it would be so easy. So horrifyingly easy.

‘TERRORIST’

But he _refused_ to be a part of that. It would blow his cover. It would erase his future. It would devour his progress..!

He gulped the fire down like a poisonous drink. It could have his body but Kray denied it his will.

‘HATEFUL’

When he arrived home that night, there was a card in Galo’s hand-writing wishing him “Get Well” waiting for him under his door.

Alarmingly, it lit itself on fire before Kray even touched it.

‘BURNISH’

Under the thunderous heartbeat of that sight, Kray was propelled to resume working on his variations to the Doctor's inventions in diagrams all night as well as the next day and the days after. He made adjustments until the technology took on more formidable shapes, more useful shapes. Until they turned into detaining devices. Until they looked more like ammunition.

_MORE, MORE, MORE, HOTTER, BRIGHTER. NOT ENOUGH—_

“You’re saying this invention is capable of actually hurting the Promare?” Kray hastily asked with ill-placed hope once Doctor Prometh revealed what he called ‘the Prometech Pod.’

“Yes, but I’m afraid it does so at the expense of the Burnish,” answered Prometh after shutting off the device and rubbing at his eyes tiredly. “It won’t do.”

Kray could see and feel the flames within himself manifest physically to reach out to the Doctor with large, fiery hands and hear their feral howl.

He panicked and held his breath, nearly dropped the tablet tucked under his arm, but when Dr. Prometh turned to him, he didn’t react.

It hadn’t been real.

_THE WORST, THE WORST, THE ABSOLUTE WORST—_

From then on, Kray worked after hours too, insisting that he desired to study the Promare’s other qualities, such as their intra-dimensional capabilities. He busied himself filling a blackboard with absurd potentialities back and forth just to endeavor. Space travel. Exo-planet discovery. Terra-forming.

It was all to increase his access to the technology that lay dormant at times away from the Doctor’s cautious eyes. He backed up all data for himself. And in due time, he developed a prototype version of one his more easy modifications: a gun outfitted to eject one of the many freezing agents the Doctor had invented. A gun capable of instantly trapping a Burnish in ice.

Doctor Prometh’s invention at last weaponized.

Before he began to build this prototype, Kray _had_ suggested the idea to the Doctor, but he’d simply shook his head, jabbered on about all the possible misuses. He was fearful of Burnish mistreatment rather than what Kray considered a far more pressing matter: the second World Blaze.

In Kray’s eyes, the Doctor failed massively at seeing the Bigger Picture.

_STRONGER, BIGGER. MORE THAN THIS—_

With the gun finally laid unceremoniously in his own hands, Kray’s first thought was to aim it at himself. Truly, there was no better place to start. This was, in essence, all of what he had poured off himself amounted to. This way, he could finally erase his sins!

But, as he placed the butt of the gun to his jaw with shaky, tentative hands, the voice within him roared to life like never before.

_TRY IT. TRY IT. TRY IT TRY IT TRY IT TRY IT TRY IT TRY—_

_IT WON’T WORK. WE CAN BURN HOTTER—_

It made no sense. The Doctor’s freezing agents undoubtedly worked. Kray had fired it into a test dummy before the assembly was finished. He knew with logical exactitude that it utterly worked.

_MORE, MORE, MORE, MORE. YOUR FLAME BURNS HOTTER—_

It may not kill him, but it should by all accounts detain the accursed fire, he was sure.

But would it be enough?

Kray then considered that if the projections he kept studying were real, who would be left to stop the many more headstones and burials that were to come if he continued to allow the Mad Burnish to be free? Who would stop the Promare?

_TRY IT. TRY IT. TRY IT—_

Will Kray be remembered as just a faux hero? Just a fluke rescue in his record? Never amounted to anything else? Never allowed to turn the _lie_ into a **truth**.

“ _I want to be a hero, just like you,”_ young Galo had said, a year ago, five years ago, again and again.

 _“Kray Foresight: Hailed Hero Eradicates Averse Fire Mutation,”_ he remembered the illusion.

From within the depths of his youngest memories, he heard the sound of motorcycles, the endless loops of sirens in the streets, of people coughing out smoke, and of volcanic eruptions the world over.

_TRY IT—_

Kray felt the heat rise within his body, felt the fabric of his lab coat begin to sizzle at the edges, his sweat evaporated as it emerged from his skin. But the hands that held the gun no longer shook.

Logically, Kray knew that the gun worked. But by some instinct, he knew that it was useless to fire it.

So he lowered it.

_YOU CAN BURN HOTTER—_

It dawned on him then. There was a reason he knew this. It was the wrong gun. It was aimed at the wrong person.

'It has to be me...'

The fire inside him was alive, and it had always _always_ burned, and _there was a reason._

‘It has to be ME.’

Through the misshapen reflections from the tiles under his feet, he saw the two unintended headstones with the Thymos name. If it hadn't been deliberate back then, what was one more grave if there was a chance it was just?

_HARSHER THAN THIS—_

Past that reflection lay a large blackboard with various of his and the Doctor’s calculations and potentials derived from the Promare’s trans-dimensional qualities. Among those shapes and numbers, Kray suddenly envisioned a new future. A clean slate. A fresh start.

'There's no one else.'

Several weeks later, Kray buried Doctor Prometh's lab under a block of ice, forever refusing the Promare the satisfaction to burn any further than it already was. It could have his body, it had changed his future. He would not let it burn any more than that, until it was time to say goodbye.

His own ambition, his redemption was far far bigger.

And when the modified freezing technology was registered under his name and the early Zero-Chain Bullets rolled out, for the first time in years, Kray found a small sense of peace.

With this bullet within him, the only way the Promare could ever be free was to _intentionally_ let it burn so hotly, so savagely, that it would overpower and destroy the bullet from within. No longer would he worry over mistakenly sabotaging his cover. He could become the most scrutinized man in the city.

He commanded the Promare.

“Your son still thinks I’m a hero,” he said these words to the two gravestones that had started it all. In all his previous visits, sometimes with Galo in tow, he had never looked so cheerful.

“But I’ll become something better... the savior of humanity.” He dusted off some tiny pebbles near the engraving absently.

“I should say, ‘Thank you.’”

◁◁◁◁◁◁ ◆ ▷▷▷▷▷▷

No one knows the Promare as well as he does.

No one’s achieved the sacrifice he’s capable of.

When Kray gained access to Doctor Prometh’s lab, he had been searching for an end to his problems, but he found the answer in himself.

Only HE can extinguish these flames, and the ship he spent years to build was the way.

Under the layers of his contempt for the Promare, the shadows of his graves, the initial guilt, the subsequent self-hatred, the continued public deceit and all the years of his fury, Kray had always fed the flames within himself, pushing him towards the Parnassus project, ready to erupt when all else failed.

There may be new blood under his gloves, both deliberate and collateral, but it was all the more reason he would not admit defeat.

_BRIGHTER! MORE SEVERELY—_

In the distance, he could hear the hundreds of voices drowning helplessly under a dying fire. Heris may have overloaded the engine core, straining the Burnish that were trapped inside the pods, but they were still useful. This could still stand within his calculations. He just had to veer his route one more time, as long as it led to the same destination.

No compromise was too big at this point. He had already made the choice to use anything, _anything_ , at his disposal, including himself.

_HOTTER—_

If he ever retorted to using his fire.. to manifest the vile, heinous Promare outside his physical body—hence destroying the bullet that contained them, it was because he exerted his unquestionable will over it. Because he was different from all other Burnish, from the likes of Lio Fotia.

He flexed his prosthetic, which let off an icy steam. His whole body was cold and his muscles didn’t ache, but he wasn’t worried.

_SET ABLAZE—_

Kray exited the wreckage to face the cockpit of the Deus Ex Machina and its pilots, extending his arms in unprecedented glee, ready to taunt and unleash his most dreadful form; to at last bare his true unsightly fangs.

“Does saving the Burnish mean that much to you, Lio Fotia?”

He won't let the Promare win.

He will leave it to die with the exploding Earth.

He will finally be free.

“Kray!”

The fire within him stirred. Angry. Sad. Eager. Desperate. Revved and anticipatory.

“...But you will fail.”

◆◇FIN◇◆

**Author's Note:**

> In the scene that follows this story, you can hear a feral roar as Kray’s promare finally manifests. It’s so different from the child-like voices at the end when they leave the Earth, separating from Lio. So I decided to borrow Kray’s JP VA’s idea about his fire always burning within him out of guilt for years. That would explain why he’s so strong!
> 
> Kray rebranding Deus Prometh’s technology was something I got from this [fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21769528), because I liked it, it made sense to me.
> 
> As for the Chain-Freezing bullet, it’s something I wrote about in my previous story.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
